Xbox One, What it’s Gotten Right

The Xbox One has undeniably stumbled out of the gate. Mere weeks after it’s lukewarm introduction Microsoft and the Xbox team have managed to dig themselves into a sizeable hole behind their competition. Various polls have usually ended with the PS4 in a landslide victory. Gamepur reports that one poll suggests 80% of gamers would still buy a PS4 even if the Xbox One cost $400. And while the accuracy of these polls is debatable, this certainly doesn’t look good for the box that Gates built. We won’t get into too much detail about everything that’s gone wrong, but let’s take a look at some of the things that the Xbox One may have gotten right:

Games

While this has been largely overshadowed due to bad press, the Xbox One will have some of the best games available. All of the major third party, multi-platform games will be coming to the Xbox One including: Watch Dogs, Destiny, The Division, Metal Gear Solid 5, Final Fantasy XV, Kingdom Heart’s 3, Assassin’s Creed 4, Battlefield 4 and Call of Duty: Ghosts. It also has a strong line up of exclusives in: Titanfall, Quantum Break, Ryse: Son of Rome, Forza 5, D4, Dead Rising 3, Minecraft: Xbox One Edition, Sunset Overdrive, Crimson Dragon, Killer Instinct, Project Spark, Halo (2014), Kinect Sports: Rivals and several more. MS has invested over $1 billion in games this generation and the investment will pay off. Despite it’s perceived shortcomings, the Xbox One will have no shortage of games.

Kinect 2.0

This has also been over shadowed as a result of bad press (in no small part due to MS reps themselves). While the first Kinect struggled to find a place with the core Xbox crowd Kinect 2.0 seems to be a major improvement over it’s predecessor. The accuracy and latency issues seem to have been greatly improved and the 1080p resolution of the camera shows great promise. Examples like turning on night vision by tapping one’s temple could certainly work well in a hardcore game. There is also the Illumiroom demo where Kinect turns your entire living room into a video game.

All in One Multi-Media Console

The Xbox One will do more than simply play games. It will do everything. Simple, seamless and with the sound of your voice you can alternate between games, movies, music, apps, TV and Skype. I’m vaguely reminded of J.A.R.V.I.S. from the Iron Man films. Okay, maybe that’s a little pre-mature, but we can see where this technology has the potential to go. And I might be alone here, but when I saw video chat through the television in Back to the Future 2 I was amazed (I was also 7 but that’s besides the point). Skype with Xbox One gives us the freedom to video chat people simply by using our voice to call them and this is a major advantage for the Xbox One. “Scan it Needles, we’re in.”

Xbox Live

Xbox Live has always had a reputation as the best online platform and that will continue into this generation. With the addition of 300,000 dedicated servers, the promise of cloud computing and a $700 million investment in a new data center in Des Moines, the future of Xbox Live looks bright.

Conclusion

While MS has created a case study in what not to do when revealing a new product, we tend to forget that the Xbox One is still a pretty impressive piece of hardware. It will play amazing games, navigate with voice and gestures and alternate seamlessly between all of our entertainment. There are still four months left before launch. Hopefully we see more impressive demonstrations of what the Xbox One can do and hear less talk about heartbeats and advertisements.

What are your thoughts on the Xbox One? Sound off in the comments below.